Review of Epiphone M2 Prophecy EX

Well it came today, I took it out of the box, inspected it, tried it out, set it up with my guage strings and put it back in the box til Christmas morning. I did get enough exposure to give the thing a bit of a review.

The thing is beautiful to look at, that is for sure. I couldn't find any real flaws. Well, one of the ferules for the string through might be a little off line but no dents, scratches or anything like that. It was in need of a bit of a setup. The action was a little high and lowering that and changing string guages called for intonation adjustment. The frets are perfect, no buzz, no rattle, no sharp edges ... full binding. The tuners are OK, nothing great. They are supposed to be Grovers but they are the same 6 on a side that came on the Kramer guitars I got from MusicYo. One of the reviews on Musicians Friend said the neck was very Jackson like and I wasn't sure how I felt about that as my Jackson neck is very slim, maybe too much so. Well, I forgot about the low end Jackson guitars that are made in Indonesia, coincidentially where this guitar was made, they have a meatier neck. This guitar has the same neck, think Les Paul neck with a D shape. The fingerboard radius is very flat and the frets are wide but not necessarily too tall. Despite a 25 1/2 " scale and 24 frets it hangs very well balanced and the frets are in the same place in relation to my body as my Les Pauls. I have a B.C.Rich Mockingbird with 24 frets and when I play that I often reach a full tone higher than I want just because of how it hangs, the frets are shifted left of what I am used to. The Epi Active pickups are nice I suppose. You can switch the active electronics off and on via the push/pull volume pot. With the active mode on there is certainly more sustain and the pickups are hotter. I'd have to say the tone controll is passive cause it doesn't do much. The Epiphone strap locks are similar to Schallers except there are no moving parts. The horseshoe piece snaps onto the strap button with a little built in clip. I don't know how well they will hold up but plan to use them for a bit and find out. All in all I think a good purchase, even though I didn't need it. I do see myself using this guitar a fair bit cause it has a Les Paul feel and sound despite looking nothing like one. :lol: The neck is maple and the body wood depends upon the site you read it from. Musicians Friend says bass wood (it aint cause its heavy and has a 3 piece body that took a nice stain) or alder as per the Epiphone site. It gets it's sustain from a 9 volt battery. :lol: Seriously, as a Les Paul player I am very at home with this axe in hand. I intend to keep it.